Revitalization of 500 Block gains momentum

Sometime in the next few weeks, the ownership of a long-vacant building on the 500 Block of Main Street will change ownership.

In the grand scheme of things, the deal – reported to be in the low $100,000s – isn’t like one of those multimillion-dollar transactions. But the symbolism of it speaks volumes.

The building is the Rose Nails structure at 535 Main, across from the Hyatt Regency Buffalo. It has been owned since 2005 by a New Jersey investment group.

When people make less-than-pleasant comments about the state of downtown Buffalo – be it New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady or USA Hockey’s Emerson Etam – it might be because they are sitting in their hotel room looking out, in many instances, at the 500 Block. Dead center in their vision is the vacant Rose Nails building.

So he teamed with Paul Lamparelli of Lamparelli Construction Co., to purchase it and restore it in a way that pays homage to its early-1900s heritage.

“The building’s got great bones,” Helfer said. “It has so much potential and it was just sitting there.”

The tentative game plan for the four-story, 7,000-square-foot building is retail, offices or a restaurant on the first floor and market-rate apartments on the upper ones. The entire project will be privately financed by the pair.

In essence, they plan to take an urban ugly duckling and make it into something special. Lamparelli is general contractor on two other transformative projects on the 500 Block: the new home of the Martin Group agency and soon-to-be offices for Ricotta & Visco law firm. He knows the block.

He and Helfer are not alone.

While the block has been rightfully criticized for its appearance, there are signs that the stretch of Main Street between the Hyatt and Lafayette Square is catching the eye of developers.

More than half of the 31 buildings along that stretch have been renovated or are getting fixed up.

Many of the developments have specific first-floor uses while bringing residential components to upper floors. That appears to be the development package that works best not only on the that block but throughout the central business district.

With work expected to start this fall farther down Main Street, in terms of the “Cars Sharing Main Street” program, that puts the 500 Block in the on-deck circle. Some preliminary engineering and design work is under way. Optimistically, some could see cars returning to the block within five years. That in itself was be transformative for downtown.

“Look at the 700 block (of Main Street),” Schmand said. “Private-sector investment followed the ‘Cars Sharing Main Street’ dollars.”

People are taking notice.

The former Grever’s Florist building that neighbors the building Helfer and Lamparelli are buying will include a French-style first-floor restaurant and upper-floor apartments. The same plan is in the works for the Texas Red Hots Building on East Huron Street.

Farther north on Main, the former Ya-Ya’s Bayou restaurant is reportedly leased and will reopen as an upscale eatery.

“Every time one of us does something like this, it picks up the entire neighborhood,” Helfer said of his project.